Category: privilege

‘Internal investigations are increasingly being conducted by companies not only on regulatory grounds but also in response to employment issues such as whistleblowing and discrimination allegations. In SFO v ENRC [2018] EWCA Civ 2006, the Court of Appeal has significantly widened the scope of legal professional privilege in the context of an internal company investigation. It will now be easier for the employer to assert privilege over employees’ witness statements and other documents generated in an investigation.’

‘The same issues often crop up across an array of regulatory work. Legal professional privilege is the most obvious example, with a number of high profile cases arising out of SFO investigations. A second example concerns the rights of third parties to prevent the publication of adverse comment about them in regulatory reports and decisions (‘Maxwellisation’). In this article, Jamie Smith QC and Helen Evans explain how these two issues have arisen in the context of disciplinary investigations and proceedings undertaken by the Financial Reporting Council (FRC), which plays an important role in the regulation of accountants.’

‘An auction house has failed to establish litigation privilege over correspondence with experts about whether or not a painting it sold was counterfeit, in a case brought by the seller of that painting.’

‘The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) will not appeal to the Supreme Court last month’s ruling that documents generated in connection with an investigation into the Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation (ENRC) were protected by litigation privilege, it has confirmed.’

‘The Director of the SFO v ENRC [2018] EWCA Civ 2006. Eurasian Natural Resources Corp, the defendant to the Serious Fraud Office’s application to enforce notices seeking to compel the production of documents, has had a chequered history in the last 10 years since it came to the London market (in January 2014 it delisted and went private). In December 2010, a whistleblower alerted the company by email to serious allegations of corruption, fraud and bribery within its group.’

‘The protective scope of professional privilege received an important boost today when an appeal ruled that in-house advice prepared prior to court proceedings is as protected by privilege as that given in the defence of proceedings. In a much awaited ruling, the President of the Queen’s Bench Division Sir Brian Leveson, Chancellor of the High Court Sir Geoffrey Vos and Lord Justice McCombe this morning backed an appeal over a High Court ruling that a business under investigation by the Serious Fraud Office should turn over materials prepared for an earlier internal investigation.’

‘Employment tribunals should generally give the benefit of doubt to a legal representative facing a wasted costs applications where their client refuses to waive privilege, the president of the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) has decided.’

‘The president of the Family Division is to be asked what the court should do in the highly unusual case of a ‘whistleblower’ from the solicitors of one party to a divorce sending it legally privileged information.’

‘On 10 April 2018, President Donald Trump tweeted “Attorney-client privilege is dead!” This was not the President’s deep analysis of the state of legal professional privilege (LLP) but a reaction to the raid on the offices of one of his former lawyers and the seizing of a quantity of documentation.’

‘The mining company at the centre of a row over professional privilege has called for an independent inquiry into the Serious Fraud Office (SFO), accusing the office of failing to investigate a whistleblower’s letter.’

‘In UK tax avoidance disputes there are practical difficulties in asserting legal privilege to prevent legal advice being disclosed to HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) where the taxpayer has to explain the motivations behind a transaction, but properly asserting privilege should never be seen as being ‘uncooperative’.’